The Benefits of a Diversified Polish Landscape: More Investments from China

Diversity initiatives can have important and
interesting social justice benefits, but the real reason you want to pursue
diversity programs is for innovation. You want diversity of thought. Here’s the
key: If you want diversity of thought, you have to bring in people around you
who have diverse experiences. Differences in race, gender, and socioeconomic
background are three characteristics, but so are differences in learning style
or differences in professional field. And I’m not suggesting that any one of those
points of diversity is more potent than others.

David ThomasH.
Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

During Poland’s Golden age of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, Poland had it’s greatest amount of diversity in terms of
demographics and religion. It contributed
to its influence as an important European center for the development of modern
social and political ideas.
During the Islamic Golden Age, Baghdad was the center of the exchange of
goods and scientific ideas. All of this
came from the diversity that was allowed and encouraged by the people and the
institution. Unfortunately, all of these
ended when things started to become too homogeneous. In Poland’s case, all the power started to
accumulate in the hands of the nobility.
In Islam’s case, the power started to accumulate in the hands of the radical
conservatives.

Poland and China Trade

At the moment, Poland is a relatively homogenious
society. This could be a limiting factor
in its need to grow and innovate towards a more competitve economy. In recent years more and more attention has
been directed towards the Asian tigers.
India and China has become a dominating force on the world economic
stage. Although the rate of growth is
slowing down quite a bit, China is still growing faster than its Western
counterparts. It is easy to see why so
many countries have become very interested in getting their hands into the new
honey pot.

In 2011 Hungary was successful in the procurement of a $3.6
Billion investement agreement with the Red Dragon. The origins of this deal can be traced back
to a 1988 bilateral agreement easing visa regulations of Chinese citizens who
want to enter Hungary. This started a
large amount of trade between the two countries. It is obvious that Hungary has learned its
lessons from about 700 years prior when the Golden Horde mercilessly took over
the Hungarian territory in a matter of two months. It is better to do business with those from
the East rather than fight them. I had
been in Budapest during the time of Premier Wen’s visit. The Parlament
Building and the Széchenyi Chain Bridge were festooned in Chinese Flags.

Poland has never been in the radars as far as the Chinese are
concerned in terms of trade. Poland as
some Chinese residents have said are rather under developed. Their visa policy are too restrictive and
prohibiting.
The border guards often try to cause trouble for Chinese
businessmen. Although there are some the
current efforts of the Polish government to get China to become interested in
investing in Poland it might not be enough to make much of a difference. The COVEC debacle only made it worse. China has already found a „port” into the
European market in Hungary. The Polish
market is simply not big enough to warrant a major effort. It is enough to establish a small hub in Jaworzno
as a distribution point and to make the deals with the local telecoms to get
their Huawei equipments into Polish hands.

Another reasone
to the lack of warmth between China and Poland is the general Polish attitude
towards Chinese culture. Being a ethinc
Chinese here in Poland, I sometimes feel like a social pariah. I can speak Polish and I do engage in some
Polish cultural activities, and I do have some Polish friends. I still cannot shake the feeling that Polish
people seem to think they are better than the Chinese. I have taught Chinese in many instances, and
when I try to bring some Chinese cultural components into my lessons, I do not
get any sense of enthusiasm. Polish
people are generally enthusiastic in learning languages. However, this is generally where the interest
seem to stop. They don’t really try to
get deeper into another’s culture. The
first thing that any good sales man tries to do is to make a human
connection. Then they can try use
emotions to create desire and need for their products. One of the ways is to express interest in
another’s cuture.

I have been to
enough Chinese Polish conferences to see that most of the topic has to do with
due dilligence and intellectual property.
And most of the so-called experts try to give some magic pill tips in
doing business with the Chinese. Most of
them still focus too much on the differences between Poland and China. Wouldn’t it easier to focus on the
similarities first. Then, I believe the
differences will work themselves out.
First of all doing business in China is plagued with a massive amount of
beauracracy, well so is doing business here in Poland. Poland can use its experience dealing with
communist governments to deal with the Chinese government. The Polish
pierogi is quite similar to the Chinese jiao-tse. In many of these conferences, the experts
seems to adopt this „us vs. them” mindset.
And most of them are Polish. Why
not let the Chinese into the conversation?

Here is what the
experts are missing.The Chinese is a
very tight-knit community.Word travels
fast.Once you get a bad reputation, it
is very hard to live it down.Chinese
people hold grudges.There are a lot
more of the Chinese then Poles.Chinese
people don’t open their purses so easily. (Think Jews and Scots)China has access to a vast amount of wealth
due to the fact that they don’t over spend and possibily currency
manipulation.Chinese IT talent is high
in quality and cheaper than Poland.China has more to offer than gadgets, cheap household wares, and cheap
clothing.China is filled with well
qualified talented individuals.

Currently, there are some Chinese-Polish cooperative
efforts which is a start. And
universities like AGH, Jagiellonian and University of Warsaw are trying to
attract more Chinese students. They are
among the universities recognized by the Chinese educational authorities. Perhaps through these activities, they can
turn things around.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please like me on Facebook.

Search This Blog

An English blog about Krakow Startup

Hello readers, My name is Paul Chen and welcome to K’Sup. My goal is to provide you an English language based blog on the events as well as highlight some of the enterprises who are trying to get their spot on the map as well as to archive the on-going activities at the same time do some trend-spotting. I hope you will find K’Sup both informative and inspirational. The name K’Sup is a combination of K for Krakow and S for start and UP. ‘Sup is colloquial for what’s up in American slang.